The Subject's Gauntlet
by TheEccentricScientist
Summary: In the years that followed the fall of the British Government, there was much speculation on the events surrounding it- both on the so-called "Mandrake Phenomenon" and the successful journey through Ptolemy's Gate supposedly made by Ms Kitty Jones. However, in making the leap from theory to experimentation, Aperture Science may have got more than they bargained for.
1. Chapter 1

As with most stories that take place in this universe, this one starts with a pentacle.

It's a rather unusual pentacle, however. Although it features all the basic components- flourishes, runes, and most importantly an unbroken edge- it then branches off into a web of intricately-knitted wires, twisting together in some places to form thick bunches and breaking into a thousand tiny tendrils in others. They snake away from the circle into the plugs of machines which line the walls of the room. They're fairly primitive, featuring more buttons and dials than keyboards and screens, but they have a business-like, competent air about them, which suggests that while they may take a while to do it, they fulfill their function perfectly.

It's a dangerous business, to meddle with the pentacle, and the spirit contained in this one contemplates how many people must have given their lives to ensure this design's proficiency. However, it only contemplates it briefly, firstly because human life has never really mattered much to it, and secondly because it has realised it is not alone in its prison.

The pentacle in which it now resides is connected by a blossoming network of cables to another pentacle. The spirit, quick to recognise the symbols associated with the magician's trade, sees that those which adorn this adjacent circle look more like symbols to trap than to protect. This might make sense if the pentacle held another spirit, but instead the figure which stands trembling slightly within its confines is human. A female human, to be specific, dressed in a neat yet unassuming ensemble which marks her out as a person who, while not a magician, is still fairly near to the seat of power. The spirit has only been summoned a handful of times, and therefore cannot read human emotion without difficulty, but still manages to read the fear which radiates off her body, that lurks quaking in her eyes. After all, it's used to this particular reaction.

What it's not used to is the fact that this particular human is trying to overcome her terror. Magicians' behaviour when afraid is very different; they either use it as a whetstone for their anger and attack, or attempt to flee. But this woman does neither, although the anger is there, clenching her fists against the shaking and setting her mouth in a grim line. It never breaks her control over her body, though, as it is so wont to do to magicians- the eyes which gaze at the spirit are as cold and unyielding as rock. She may be afraid and furious, but she won't let either emotion master her.

From a point outside the spirit's line of sight comes the fluttering of pages, and it turns to see a magician in yet another pentacle, shuffling through a clutch of notes. He's perspiring slightly, letting his cowardice rise up and devour him from the inside out. He's dropped a sheet now, and in ducking down to retrieve it almost breaks the circle. Almost, but not quite, and the spirit feels the sharp spike of anticipation which dug momentarily into its essence release its bite, leaving behind a nagging ache. It ignores this, however. There will be other times, other mistakes, and it's quick enough to both spot and take advantage of them.

The man begins to read aloud, in a husky, breathless voice. The spirit listens attentively for the slip of the tongue that would so naturally rise from the quagmire of anxiety he's engulfed in, but he's been trained well, and although his voice quavers and his breaths come sporadically, the words pour out of his mouth in a smooth, steady stream.

The words themselves are fairly unremarkable, in that they are simply the spirit's name. Most spirits have fairly short names, names which can be called and responded into quickly, as befits a slave. This particular spirit's name, however, is long and ponderous, stretching out across a winding trail of syllables. It wonders, sometimes, why the magicians never take the hint. If it's that hard to say, maybe there's a reason you shouldn't say it.

However, now the magician reaches the end, and suddenly the instructions become a lot less regular. For a start, they're not about the summoner. They're about the woman, who still holds her unyielding stance in the other pentacle, even as droplets of moisture leak from her eyes and her teeth sink deeper into her bottom lip in a hopeless attempt to stem the flow. Commands to bind and safeguard, it sounds like, although the words wind and twist around themselves as the magician doubles back to seal loopholes and add sub-clauses, until the orders are knotted and woven together like tangled string. The spirit tries to catch every word (though not necessary for the instructions to be binding, attentive listening is useful for finding weak points in the summoning), but the magician's hoarse speech is accompanied now by a sudden flurry of activity from the machines which surround the pentacle. Their displays flash and blink with a dazzling glissando of coloured lights, accompanied by a literal glissando of whining electronic tones and the whirr of processors. And still he keeps going, drawing the bonds of the contract tighter and tighter, until finally he ends with a gasp and reaches to loosen his necktie.

The spirit's essence hangs motionless in the pentacle for a brief moment, as the commands constrict and tether it. When the spirit looks back on it, it will be able to picture every detail- the magician's sweat-moistened fringe damply catching the light- the technological aurora borealis that surrounds it, flaring and fading in a slow, almost dream-like patterns- the dew-like glimmer that shines in the woman's steely eyes.

And then there is throbbing heat and darkness and a screaming, pounding fury, that surges upwards into harsh, blazing light.

 **Author's note:**

 **Hello again! As always, reviews and comments are welcomed with open arms.**


	2. Chapter 2

"Hello?"

Chell stirred muzzily. She couldn't quite bring herself to look at her surroundings yet, but knew that whatever they were they were exceedingly damp and cold. The chilled air of the room stroked icy fingers over her face and pinched her features, and she could hear the irregular drip of a leak coming from somewhere-

"Hello, anyone in there?"

Well, she could when it wasn't obscured by half-panicked yelling. There was something naggingly familiar about that voice, but it had cracked under the heavy burden of stress, and dipped and soared its way through the octaves in such a way that its natural range was practically unidentifiable.

"Look, I know you have to be in here, okay? I've checked in every single one of these other cells, and since you're not in any of them, you have to be in here, right? Logic. Works every time. Unless you're dead, of course. Oh, good grief, didn't think of that. What if you're dead? People aren't going to be very happy about that, least of all me. Or maybe you. I suppose you'd be less happy, being the dead one. Although, seeing as I might be dead very shortly if you are dead, it might just be-"

Chell heaved herself up from the floor where she lay, before the voice could convince itself entirely of the reality of her demise. The room was, as she had pessimistically guessed, a cell. It had once been something above your average dungeon, if memory served correctly, with sleek, clean, clinical lines and dazzlingly white surfaces. However, years of neglect had taken their toll on their place. Now, the walls crawled with plant life, their white paint flaking into obscurity, and the ceiling dripped with damp fungus. The floor tiles had been ripped away by questing roots, and their jagged edges clawed at the surface of Chell's boots as she swiftly made her way to the door.

A brief glance told her that unfortunately, the door and its lock were two of the only things which had survived the ravages of time. Though the hinges groaned and creaked horrendously, they held firm against the hardest of shoves- a fact which evidently hadn't been noticed by the owner of the voice, which was now ruefully bemoaning the fact that she couldn't have held on just a little longer before dying, for its good as much as hers. In lieu of telling it that the power to ascertain her state of health lay solely in its hands, she hammered the door with a fist.

"- could have thought of other people before- AAH! Oh, you're alive! Great! Well, alive or a zombie, perhaps. Oh, was that _you_ before, then? With the hinges? Thought it might have been the wind, y'know. Lot of draughts in here, so it could have been the wind- anyone could have made the mistake, really. Now, how about opening that door?"

Chell gave this suggestion due consideration (not much, seeing as it was completely unworkable), then pounded on the door again.

"Right, what you're doing there is punching. The door. With your fist. Or your foot, I suppose, though you'd have to be pretty tall to reach all the way up there with a foot, and it wouldn't be punching then- anyway, the point is, it isn't getting the door open-"

The voice had made its way in fits and starts back to its normal pitch, and now prattled along midrange. Chell knew that she had definitely heard it before now, but was having trouble matching it with a face; perhaps because most of her social circle weren't quite so slow on the uptake as this person seemed to be. It was an upshot of being a member of the Resistance- those who were slow to react were soon no longer members of both the Resistance and the "Being Alive Club", as she had once heard it put.

Hoping to hasten the voice's thought process, Chell rattled the door on its hinges, producing a screeching moan that tore its way through the eardrums and raked its nails over the brain.

"Oh, it doesn't open on your side? Bit of a design flaw, that- doors are meant to open both ways, I'm fairly sure, they should talk to their supplier. Anyway, I can't get it open out here, the handle being made of iron, and I'm-"

The voice broke off in a delighted laugh.

"Good grief, almost forgot! I don't have to worry about that sort of thing any more, do I? Not with this body. Hang on just a tick, and I'll get it."

There was a few moments of scrabbling and scraping, and then the voice spoke again.

"Sorry, no good, I need a key. Are you absolutely sure it doesn't open on your side? Because- wait, hold on a sec-"

There was a brief pause.

"Oh, there's an idea. Look, see this little hatch up here? I'm going to open it."

The hatch, about the size of the flap of a letter box, was drawn back, accompanied by a squealing which nearly left Chell deaf. Two eyes, of a bright blue shade normally associated with crayoned strips of sky in children's paintings, peered at her through the narrow slit. A hand reached tentatively through the slot and extended a finger, taking care not to touch the iron which plated the edge.

"Look, I need you to grab my hand, okay? You don't really need to grab it- any contact'll be enough, probably- but I'm told that a bit of the old human grip can help with the jump."

Chell clasped the finger carefully, wondering what the voice meant by "the jump". Suddenly, she felt a strange movement in the air- not a breeze, but an abrupt shift in texture- and with a twist and a flex, the room distorted and vanished around her. She almost let go of the bony finger she clutched, but in the instant it took her to relax her grip the world stopped buckling, and she found herself collapsing onto a solid floor.

"There we go! Can always rely on a bit of grip. Not as grippy as I might have hoped, but still, got you here, didn't it? Full marks for effort."

Chell looked up at the source of the voice, which showed no signs of abating. It belonged to a tall, skinny man, with an untidy mop of dark hair and a pair of squarish glasses. He wore a strange device on his arm, all shiny white plastic and neon blue lights, and a bedraggled lab coat. The coat was slightly too big for him in the shoulders, and therefore necessitated his hauling on the lapels from time to time in an effort to keep it from trailing from his elbows like a singularly unattractive stole.

The man noticed her staring, and gave her a broad grin. "Instantaneous matter transformation, eh? What did you think? Pretty impressive, I'd say. Not a lot of spirits can do that, y'know, and then it's usually only the top brass, afrits and marids and such. Now, while I'm pretty powerful, I'm not quite up there, but still, just goes to show that when physical power fails, brainpower can get you through, right?" He squinted through his bottle-thick lenses. "Well, brain power and a portal device. You alright down there? Not saying much, are you? Nothing, nothing wrong with that, at all, you understand, just- you know, most people would be complaining about the jump by now, or moaning, or something. Anything wrong?"

Chell stared up at him, his words engulfed by the wave of tangled emotions that was crashing down upon her thoughts. It was _him_. Somehow, in some way, it was him. She had thought he had been redacted long ago, buried somewhere in an unmarked grave. The employees who had passed away inside the confines of Aperture Innovations were always given unmarked graves- it meant that the company didn't have to explain why there were quite so many of them.

His appearance here left her grasping blindly for a response in the thick fog of her feelings. Rage, sorrow, respect and (strangely) happiness all demanded a different reaction to his anxious visage. However, they were all held in check by the icy realisation that it wasn't actually him. He may have disappeared before the Rebellion, but nevertheless it was fairly clear from the thing's words that it was actually some demon wearing him as a suit. The thought filled her with disgust, although she was careful not to let it show on her face. It was decidedly not a good idea to insult someone who had just rescued you from death and a fate worse than death simultaneously.

Despite the fact she hadn't moved since he had asked his question, the creature seemed to take her silence as a response. "No? Nothing? Well, alright. Strong and silent, both good traits. I suppose we'd better get the introductions out of the way before we go any further. The name's Wheatley, at your service." He paused. "Although not literally, since we don't have a pentacle and I'm already working under orders from someone else."

Chell frowned slightly. She knew very well that the body the creature was using had once called itself "Wheatley", but she had no idea why the thing it was now under the control of would choose to identify itself by the same name.

"Wheatley" saw her apprehension. "Well, obviously that's not my real name," he admitted, knotting his fingers together. "But, let's be honest, my real name wouldn't be much use to you, would it? I've been summoned by someone else, and if you had a Repossessing Device they would have had it off you at the door. So my actual name isn't really required at this juncture, so to speak. And besides," - here the demon gave an awkward little laugh and a shrug of his angular shoulders- "It's not really good manners, is it, to demand something which would give you all that power? Much better start off on an equal footing, so to speak. So, what's your name?"

 _I can't speak_ , mouthed Chell, but seemed that Wheatley wasn't skilled at lip reading. To be fair, he would have little use for it- all magicians had to be able to recite incantations aloud to bind a demon effectively. He squinted at her movements, his face contorted with puzzlement. "Sorry, I- I think you forgot to produce sound. Need sound to be able to understand what you're saying, otherwise all you get is this kind of breathy noise. You- oh, maybe you can't speak? Is that it?"

Chell gave a single nod. Wheatley gave a forced chuckle.

"Fine, fine, that's fine. Admittedly, it'd be helpful if I could be sure that you understand what I'm saying, as opposed to you maybe just nodding along, but we'll cope. Now, let's get on with getting you out of there, shall we?"

 **Author's note:**

 **And, finally, we're off! Thank you so much to the person who favourited this (not sure if mentioning you by name would infringe on your right to privacy, so we'll play it safe for now). It is pretty much thanks to you this thing got updated, so thank you for the motivation. Any comments or suggestions for improvement are welcomed with open arms.**

 **Thank you for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

Though Wheatley, as he preferred to be known, was fairly certain he was projecting a cool, unruffled exterior, he was actually quite a bit worried. True, She wasn't awake, no problems there- but her servants still patrolled the labs and the town they were situated in, and he could really do without bumping into any of them. Contrary to what he heard whispered in sniggering tones behind his back, he was a djinni of not too low a level, but the amount of power his rank granted him wasn't going to be enough to escape from some of the monstrosities that prowled this place. No, this was a job that required cunning, strategy and keen intelligence, which was doubtless why he'd been chosen rather than one of his fellow djinn. You could rely on old Wheatley to bring something other than brawn to the table- which was just as well, he thought, because although having a body to protect you from iron and suchlike was pretty nifty, this one didn't have a load of muscle.

So. How were they going to get out, then? He'd used the main passageways when he came in, safe in the knowledge that the body he wore meant he could blend in with the locals- but the aura belonging to the spirits trapped in the lady's leg-braces meant that they'd be overrun by Her minions before they had taken two steps. It had been bad enough smuggling the portal gun and the transportation device from the long-forgotten labs, smothering them in iron chainmail he'd been given by his master and hoping against hope that their telltale auras wouldn't shine through the chinks, but he didn't dare try and tinker with the braces for fear of setting off some curse on those who dared meddle with them.

Hang on- the portal gun! Why bother trying to find a route, when you've got something on you that can punch through walls and then some? True, he probably shouldn't be trying to use it- his master had said specifically that he wanted the thing intact, and goodness knows a tonne of them got broken in testing- but the man hadn't actually forbidden him from doing so, and that was good enough for Wheatley. He gave an elated "Hah!", which caused the lady, who'd been gazing at him in a thoughtful sort of way, to start from her stupor and give him a reproachful look.

"Sorry, love," Wheatley apologised. Part of him hated himself for apologising- she was just a smelly human, after all, and he was helping her, orders or no- but most of him really didn't like the idea of the judging look in her eyes hanging around. "I just had an idea, see. I was thinking up a plan to get us out of here- brilliant plan it was, too, quite a bit of flair and creativity and so on going into it- but then I thought, 'Why go to all the trouble to find a door when you've got a gun that makes holes?'" He looked at her quizzical expression, and decided a little explanation might be in order. "Not bullet holes, love, don't worry! They're- actually, you know what? A demonstration's probably what we need here. Show, not tell, that sort of thing."

Wheatley unclipped the silvery bundle of mail from his belt. He'd hidden the package beneath his labcoat, which he'd realised maybe hadn't been the most secure of hiding places given the way the thing so often slipped from his shoulders, but he'd nowhere else to put it, having forgotten to bring the bag his master had given him. The lady's eyes widened as he peeled off the metal wrapping to reveal the sleek lines of the dual portal device, and she reached out a hand as though to touch it. Wheatley swiftly jerked the thing out of her reach.

"Steady on, love! This is quite an expensive piece of tech, y'know, it's not like they're just handing these out to any test subject whose name shows up on the roster. Tell you what, _I'll_ handle the gun, and _you_ can use those braces to help us with any falls we've got ahead of us, okay?"

The woman's brows dropped down into a glare at his refusal, but after a few seconds she gave a sigh and nodded.

"All right then- let the games _begin_."

Wheatley took aim, and fired at the wall in front of them. Strangely enough, despite the fact that this was the first portal he'd made, the surface of it wasn't mesmerizingly opaque as he remembered it being from watching tests: instead, it showed another room, once as white and sterile as snow, but now as filthy and overgrown as a swamp. He peered at it through his glasses for a while, wondering where exactly it was, but then shrugged his shoulders and aimed up the corridor. He pulled the trigger again, and another shimmering blue hole in the fabric of space-time appeared. However, as he did so, he heard a cheerful _thwop_ noise from beside him, accompanied by a gasp from the lady. He turned, a feeling of foreboding welling up in his body's stomach, to see that his earlier portal had disappeared. The portal up ahead of them now lead to the filthy room from before.

"Erm…" Wheatley rubbed self-consciously at his glasses with a sleeve, trying to identify what exactly had went wrong. The lady was staring at him with a bemused expression that was causing blood to rush to this body's face and making him wish he had any idea what he had just done. "Just a bit of teething trouble, love; y'know, maybe it's a bit rusty from all those years in storage. That's probably it, just needs a bit of warming up before we use it. I'll give it another go."

He jerked the trigger at the opposite wall again, more urgently this time, and was rewarded with another portal appearing, but again there was that _thwop_ noise, and when he looked around the other had winked out of existence. Wheatley glared at the blank stretch of wall, as if he could will the gateway into being with his eyes, but eventually sighed and turned back to the smugly glittering hole facing them.

"It's no good, love. It's broken or something. Well, that's just _brilliant_ , isn't it? Typical, absolutely typical. I have a tremendous idea, and everyone just _leaps_ in to crush it. No, don't bother trying, Wheatley, because fate and circumstance and even the _y _portal gun_ won't let you-"

He broke off suddenly, as movement beside him caught his eye. The lady was moving forwards towards the portal, examining the room beyond.

"Erm, 'scuse me- what are you doing?"

She tilted her head, eyeing the thing critically, then gingerly extended a hand through the opening.

"Ah, it'd probably be better if you didn't do that, love- it's a rip in the fabric of reality, not a toy. You _might_ just do yourself a mischief if you keep on doing that, and I _really_ need to get you back to my master, so if you could, y'know, stop, that would be _tremendous_."

The lady had retracted her hand now, and was examining it. It seemed to meet with her approval, because she took a deep breath and then stepped through.

Wheatley watched her go, horrified.

" _Lady_! In case you haven't been listening, this gun is _broken_! That portal isn't _safe_! You could-"

He trailed off when she looked back at him from the other side, seemingly unharmed. He scowled at her, part of him wishing that she _was_ injured _-_ not badly, he thought quickly, but just something that would show his fears had been well-founded- a missing part of a finger, maybe. No halved finger materialised, however, and Wheatley continued to glare at her.

He stopped when she gestured at the device he cradled in his arms. "What?" He asked irately, still annoyed at being proved wrong. She said nothing in return, only repeated the gesture. Wheatley looked from her to the dual portal device (or just "portal device", he supposed- there was nothing dual about it now) and realised what she was asking for.

"What? No! Look, lady, in case you haven't noticed, this is a piece of highly technical equipment-"

 _Which you don't know how to use._

Wheatley stopped mid-sentence, glancing around for the source of the mysterious voice. "Eh.. Who said that?" He asked as cheerfully as he could manage. "And, not to be rude or anything, but are you going to kill us?"

 _No, you twit. Haven't you ever heard of a conscience?_

"Well, yes," said Wheatley, feeling somewhat insulted. "I'm not a moron, you know. But that's-"

 _Stop talking aloud, man! She thinks you've gone insane!_

Wheatley looked back to the portal, where the lady was indeed looking at him with an anxious expression. "Erm," he said, embarrassed. "Sorry about that, love. I was just… eh… Using a microphone, yes! Walkie-talkie sort of thing, you know, very secret agent-esque. Got to keep in contact with the bigwigs up top, keep up to date with developments. Definitely not just talking to myself."

 **How did I do?** He thought, proud of himself for thinking up such a plausible excuse. **Not bad, if I do say so myself.**

 _Yeah, yeah, whatever. Look, just give the lady the portal gun, okay?_

"I can't do that!" Wheatley said incredulously, then remembered that he probably shouldn't keep speaking out loud in case the lady realised his excuse was complete fiction. **She's just some test subject! She'll break it, and then I'll have to tell the Lab Rat that the lady's dead and she managed to destroy his gun before doing so!**

 _She's not just some test subject._

 **Oh, really? What is she, a marid?**

 _No, she's one of the scientists who designed it, actually, so, you know, it'd really be safer with her than with you. Oh, and you probably should say at least some things aloud, actually, if she thinks you're using a radio, otherwise it just looks like you're thinking about clouds or something. Now get on with it, before one of Her guards finds you standing around like this and devours you both._

"Wait a minute!" said Wheatley frantically, eliciting another curious look from his companion. He waved at her in what he hoped was a reassuring way.

 **You haven't told me what you are!** He thought quickly. **You** **can't be a conscience, that's a human thing!**

 _Well actually, in case you haven't noticed,_ _you_ are _a human now. Seems pretty likely that you'd have a conscience._

 **Oh, right.** Wheatley paused for a moment. **And you're that conscience, right? Just to clarify, important thing to know and all.**

There was nothing but silence in reply, and Wheatley gave a sigh so heavy the lady, who'd been idly twiddling her thumbs, looked back at him inquisitively.

"Nothing to worry about, love," Wheatley said. "Just- well, they signed off before I could get back to them."

The lady nodded sympathetically, then gestured towards the portal gun again.

"You don't give up, do you?" The lady's mouth quirked upwards in a smile, and she gave another nod. "Well, fine. Here you go."

He tossed it through, making sure that his hands never passed through the sparking gateway. The lady caught it easily, then looked thoughtfully at him.

"Oh, no, don't even think about it." He hesitated as an idea struck him. "Tell you what, I'll make my way through the main passageways. The other spirits won't spot me if I hide the transportation device, and since you're still registered on it I can get you out of any tricky situations you run into. I mean, I can't do it often- the thing saps energy like you wouldn't believe, honestly- but, you know, still good to have an ace up your sleeve, I suppose. Never actually played cards, so I don't know whether it's really a good thing, but whatever. Sound good?"

The lady considered his suggestion, then gave a sharp nod.

"All right, then! Off we go!"

 **Author's note:**

 **Finally, a new chapter! Sorry there's such long gaps between these. Inspiration's been a bit thin on the ground, and I find it hard to write chapters in advance or my will to write just shrivels up completely. So apologies, but I have a feeling that updates might continue to be a bit slow. Sorry once again.**

 **Anyway, thanks for reading! Comments and feedback do truly mean the world to me, so if you've got any suggestions then please do leave a review.**


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